Clearing More Timber At The Farm

Clearing timber sounds boring. Some of my readers may be wondering why I posting a video about this, much less an article. I went out and cut some trees, so what?

In the prepping / survivalist community there is this common misconception that if SHTF there is a farm in the family that has not been used in 40 (or more years) that the family is going to use as a bug out location. With a few days of hard work the farm can be up and running in a matter of days.

To bring this common survivalist plan to reality I am documenting what it takes to bring a farm that has not been used in 40 years up to speed.

If all you want to do is breakup the soil and plant some seeds, then yea, it may only take a few days. But if you want to rebuild the fences, have boards to build a chicken coop out of, have fence post, firewood,,, have a working farm with livestock, then you will need to cut timber.

For those of you have been keeping up with this blog, yall may know that my wife and I are working on getting moved further from the city. We currently live just a few miles outside Jasper Texas, but we want to move further from town.

The goal of moving is to establish a self-substantiating homestead with livestock, a garden and orchard. In other words, I am working to establish viable long term plans for a complete collapse of society. Are we going to have a collapse? I hope not.

Why Were The Trees Cut

The timber that was cleared on May 25, 2013 was to make room for power lines that will be ran to the house. A sweet gum that was about a foot in diameter and maybe 30 feet tall had to be cut down and removed. A couple of pine trees that were less then 12 inches in diameter and several small oak trees that were just a few inches across all had to be removed.

I wish the oak trees could have been left, but they would have grown into the power lines.

Directly in front of where the house is going was a mangled mess of trees, saplings and vines. Included in this mess was a large sweet gum, couple of nice sized pines, oak trees and a willow. All of the larger trees were left and all of the under brush was thinned out. Now visitors have a place to park their cars and trucks in the shade.

After the pine trees and sweet gums were cut down a chain was wrapped around the trunk and the trees were pulled to a burning pile. The oak trees are going to be cut up for firewood and for use in my smoker.

By pulling the trees to the burning pile we save a lot of time and energy. Why cut the wood, load it in the truck, take it to the burning pile and unload it, when the tree can be pulled to the burning pile, cut and loaded right into the fire.

Time For a Bonfire

The burning pile has so many trees pulled up around it they are getting hung up on each other. In the next couple of weekends my wife and some of our friends will have to have a bonfire.

I might take a Friday off work, go to the farm, build a fire, cut the trees up and start burning everything that has been cut down over the past few months.

The burning pile is where the future garden is going. I have planted there before, but nothing serious. After my wife and I get moved I would like to cultivate the area with a mixture of squash, corn, peas and beans. The ashes from the bonfire will be spread across the field.

What’s Next

There are some trees close to where the home is going that need to be trimmed, and some may need to be cut. One tree has a bend in the trunk that makes the tree look like it may be unstable if it grows too much more. I would rather cut the tree now then for the to fall on the house in a few years.

There is a rather tall pine tree that is leaning towards the future shed and water pump location. This tree is probably 24 inches in diameter and maybe 100 feet tall. Chances are I am going to have to cut that tree before we get too much further. I would rather cut the tree now then for it to fall on my shed and water pump later on.

The future driveway location needs to have some dirt hauled in to fill up a couple of low spots.

My wife and I may have the power pole and water pump put in before the house goes in.

The land where the shed and water well are going needs to be leveled out.

When I was having stumps ground, some of the stumps where buried in pine straw and were missed. So now I have to deal with a handful of stumps myself.

I would like to have a chicken yard built before my wife and I make the move. That way I can bump the existing chicken coop up to the new chicken yard and the chickens will be safe. When I built my current chicken coop it was made wide enough to fit on a lowboy trailer. The plan is to load the chicken coop on a trailer, haul it to the farm, roll it off the trailer, bump it up against the new chicken yard and be done with it. I have a responsibility to protect my livestock. I can not let the chickens run free without a fence to protect them from predators

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Kevin Felts was born and raised in southeast Texas, graduated from Bridge City high school Bridge City Texas, and attended Lamar College in Port Arthur Texas.
Hobbies include fishing, hiking, hunting, blogging, sharing his politically incorrect opinion, video blogging on youtube, survivalism and spending time with his family.
In his free time you may find Kevin working around the farm, building something, or tending to the livestock